Stray Notes from Lady Dunlcath's Aviary 



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Soft-food box — lid draws out. 



done well for new acquisitions. The hen laid fourteen eggs 

 in a scrape, and is now incubating a clutch of thirteen. 



I also have a pair of small Egrets, which I got from Mr. 

 W. T. Page; I have great hopes of breeding them next season. 

 They live in an Insignis near the pond; they are pinioned, yet 

 can fly down from a great height, but not up. 



All my birds are now quite ordinary, but very interesting, 

 and all tame. 



Food and Treatment: I always feed and tend them 

 myself, and we make the soft food of crushed hemp, bread 

 crumbs dried in the oven, sponge cake crumbled fine and put 

 through a sieve, and crushed cuttlebone — this I store in a tin, and 



moisten (slightly) the 

 daily portion with water 

 or grated carrot — I sup- 

 ply this in small wooden 

 boxes, 4in. by 2i/^in,; 

 the lid has an oblong 

 hole to prevent the food 

 being wasted. Those 

 used for seeds have six 

 round holes in the lid. It does not get sour, and the birds, 

 young and adults, do very well on it. 



In the shelters I hang shallow wooden trays from the 



roof, and place the boxes 

 containing seed, etc., inside 

 these, thus ensuring little or 

 no waste, a tidy floor, and the 

 foods cannot be fouled 

 by mice. 



Mice must be kept down, 

 and I get rid of a good many 

 by means of a box of pois- 

 oned meal, the box is about 

 i8in. square, with a wire lid — 

 only mice can get into it — 

 they die at once in .ae box. 



My general seed-mixture 

 is : Canary, white millet and 

 rape in about equal parts, and a little hemp. I also supply 



Seed Trav hanging- in Aviarv 

 Shelter. 



